Posted on 08/14/2005 2:17:59 PM PDT by presidio9
Just when you thought this NCAA mascot flap couldn't get any sillier, those animal-rights loving folks from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) jumped right through the door opened by the NCAA's Executive Committee and asked them to extend the ban on nicknames considered "hostile and abusive" to include animals.
The first salvo fired was at the nickname "Gamecocks," used by both Jacksonville State University and the University of South Carolina. PETA has written a letter to NCAA executive director Myles Brand asking that the NCAA pressure those schools to change that nickname, or else face the same ban on hosting and possibly participating in post-season play that the NCAA says it will apply to schools using names that refer to Native Americans.
In essence, PETA is asking the NCAA to reduce this theoretical humiliation of Native Americans to the level of chickens. Or perhaps, in PETA's feather-lined way of thinking, it's elevating the plight of Native Americans to that of these poor (but apparently not entirely defenseless) birds.
Logically, PETA's request makes sense. As Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla) said, "If the NCAA has to protect offended Native Americans ... by God, PETA ought to advocate for the protection of every living organism in the animal kingdom."
Either way, somebody will be offended, which we can't have because the ''freedom from being offended" is apparently buried somewhere in an overlooked part of the Bill of Rights.
Who is offended and who is not and what a reasonable response to those people might be is not what I want to take issue with here, however. What this whole issue once again screams about is the bloated bureaucracy that the NCAA has become.
In a commentary both on the NCAA website and in USA Today, the NCAA's Brand plays Pontius Pilate, washing his hands of any guilt associated with this controversy. He writes, " ... neither I nor any member of the NCAA staff had a vote. The decision was made by a dozen chancellors and presidents from all three membership divisions appointed to represent their institutions, their conferences and the values of higher education ... "
In other words, Brand says he supports the decision, but he wants to make it clear he had nothing to do with it. That's typical NCAA, handing down unreasonable decisions then passing the buck on to the often nameless and faceless "chancellors and presidents" of its member institutions.
For the record, the Executive Committee is supposed to be made up of 16 university presidents and chancellors of various institutions from all three divisions, plus Brand and the chairmen of the three divisional management councils.
What these university presidents and chancellors did was order all other university presidents and chancellors to abide by a poorly-defined restriction or face being locked out of NCAA tournaments. And if those affected members of the NCAA don't like it, the chairman of the NCAA executive committee, University of Hartford president Walter Harrison, was quoted as saying "everyone has recourse through the courts."
In other words, the Executive Committee of the NCAA is actually saying, "If you don't like it, sue us. We're ready."
If the NCAA is really determined to see this one through, what the Executive Committee is really saying is, "the only good Indian mascot is a dead Indian mascot."
That is far more offensive than generations of non-Indians signing up to proudly and bravely compete for Seminoles and Illini and Utes.
The NCAA is only reaping the nonsense it has sown.
Next will be the PETP ruling out plants (that we also abuse by growing to eat).
What IS the reason for all this nonsense? Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the fact they don't have anything better to do. Or, maybe it's because THEY'RE NUTS!!
UH, nuts would also be on the banned list. ;-)
What's next? The Sierra Club will sue so that names like The Sunflowers and The Avocados can't be used.
I find the term "NCAA" insulting and hurtful to my ancestors....
I'm demanding the following four conditions:
1. Removal of all reference to NCAA in all literature
2. A written apology to me and all my ancestors.
3. Sensitivity training for all "NCAA" members for the hurtful mislabeling of my ancestors.
4. "Just" compensation (bidding starts at $250M)
NeverGore :^) (of the NCAA Clan)
The cougars-what does the NCAA have against 30ish prowling women? My gawd-is nothing sacred. Next the Pumas?
The solution to the problem!
1. All athletic teams will be given NUMBERS.
2. There will be NO use of degrading SCORES.
3. All teams will represent a National racial, age, handicapped and gender balance.
4. All teams will be given EQUAL financial support.
5. All teams will get the same awards at the end of their season.
The NCAA has grown more popular and larger in the past years. Their idiocy has proven once again that when groups get too large and too powerful, they go off the deep end.
Well...The NCAA has shown us.
The Chinese have a saying that it is as bad to take offence as it is to give it.
Does the NCAA produce anything we need? (besides low-brow humor)
"Madness Marches" might be a better title for this article.
The minor league baseball teams were among the first casualties of this, having to name teams the Modesto Nuts, and the Winston-Salem Warthogs.
It's simple: Liberals have an absolutely stranglehold on our education system, from kindergarten through university. This latest insane display of political correctness is yet one more confirmation that it is high time for some civil disobedience in such issues. It's time for a few major universities who have major clout through the fact that they generate huge sums of cash through their athletic programs, to stand up and publicly say, "Sorry, no more." We won't change our mascot, and we dare you to try to ban us from something we earn on the field/court/whatever."
Responses like that are the ONLY thing that will bring this insanity into check, but such responses never happen. We in this country have become so conditioned to sucking up and taking it, or by deluding ourselves into thinking we can change things like this with our votes. It's past time for such responses, because a miniscule splinter group of goofy radical liberals have been shoving their idiotic notions down everybody's throat for around thirty years now. Enough is enough.
MM
You're right. And I think I read a thread here in which the University of South Dakota (?) wrote to the NCAA and refused to change their nickname, which I believe is the Fighting Sioux. So maybe some are starting to stand up to this complete nonsense.
Holy Mother of God...what the phuq? Over?
Unbelie...err..nevermind, liberalism never ceases to be even more stupid than the day before.
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